Giving Thanks

Scroll back a few posts, and you may notice a conspicuous lack of holiday cheer. While every other blogger on the face of the planet has already mapped out and shared recipes for their entire Thanksgiving dinners, or provided decorating tips for impressing the folks, or even prepared you with ideas for dealing with all those leftovers, I haven’t even said a peep about today’s festivities. It’s not that I hate Thanksgiving, and I certainly have a whole lot to be thankful for this year, but… When I realized how quickly these holidays would just keep on coming now, and before you know it, I would have squandered yet another year’s worth of merriment, well, I just went into denial. Maybe if I didn’t pay attention, it wouldn’t really happen. Of course, this is perhaps the worst plan you could ever try, because then you’ll wake up on the morning of Thanksgiving and realize you have absolutely nothing to bring to the family feast.

It’s easy to see what happened next… Quickly piling flour, sugar, and spices into the mixing bowl, cranking up the oven, and doling out paper liners at the speed of light, I figured it I could easily bake my way out of this mess. Cupcakes take no time to slap together and everyone loves them! My only word of advice here: It’s a good idea to measure your ingredients. “Why, who on earth would go about willy-nilly and not measure their ingredients?! Don’t you know that could lead to some horrible cupcake tragedy?” Um…. that would be me.

So, out of the oven came these mini cakes that looked like ground zero for multiple atomic bombs, and I only have so much time before the whole family piles into the car and takes off for Grandma’s house. Crap. Okay, should you ever find yourself in this sort of mess, don’t panic: go back to basics and think, what makes everything better? Chocolate, of course!

Good, good, they’re looking better already! Fill up those cavernous indents with ganache and I seriously doubt anyone would complain. Give ’em a quick chill in the fridge, and you’re ready to cover up your error with a nice thick pile of creamy frosting. No one will be the wiser to your baking faults!

Then, just to tie it all together, a cheerful nonpareil makes it look like you intended to include a chocolate filling all along. Nice work, now you don’t have to come to the party empty handed! So on that note, I hope that my gingerbread cupcakes with chocolate ganache and lemon frosting are received well, because I’ve gotta get going!

Have a Happy Thanksgiving; I hope that you planned your celebration out better than I did!

Hannah, I absolutely LOVE how you fixed the deflated cupcakes!! brilliant!! I probably would have just thrown out the batch, and cried, haha. Oh my goodness and those gingerbread cupcakes are the epitome of perfection – so festive too!!

Oh, you are so clever! I would have thrown the whole batch on the floor and had a hissy fit!! I think your “new” version would be extremely delicious – perhaps even better than *without* the chocolate ganache! Because Lord knows I love chocolate ganache!

Great save- those look wonderful!
If it makes you feel any better, I’m really bad at advance planning, too. I didn’t decide what to eat for Thanksgiving until the day before… and I’m making handmade x-mas gifts this year, which… uh… I really should get started on…